Delight as Gender Bill is given the snip

23 January 2004

Delight as Gender
Bill is given the snip

SPORT heaved a sigh of relief last night after surgery on a controversial Gender Recognition Bill which would otherwise have allowed transsexuals to compete after registering a new gender.

The bill, first published two months ago, appeared to have sport by the balls. Men's inherent strength and speed advantage would have caused "real" females to be marginalised with transsexuals allowed to cross over and invade their sports.

The bill provides for transsexuals to be given new birth certificates, even if they still have their original genitalia, provided that they are diagnosed as suffering from "gender dysphoria."

When this newspaper informed the International Association of Athletics Associations, they were astonished by the proposals.

Now, following talks between the Government, UK Sport, and the International Olympic Committee, the bill is to be amended. UK sports bodies will be allowed to decide, case by case, whether individual transsexuals should be allowed to compete.

Lord Filkin, the constitutional affairs minister, said: "This amendment is designed to ensure sporting bodies can uphold safe and fair competition. In the same way as a sporting body is perfectly entitled to exclude a person taking performance-enhancing drugs, for reasons of competitive parity, they would be entitled to exclude a male-to-female transsexual person if competitive parity or the safety of other competitors was at stake.

"Sporting bodies already deal with the issues raised by the participation of trans-sexual sportspeople, and this bill will not affect the flexibility that sporting bodies have."
Transsexuals will have to meet medical criteria and live in their new genders for at least two years before applying for a new birth certificate. They do not require to have undergone surgery to win the new certificates which will allow them to marry in their new genders.

Transsexual campaigners have been fighting for a change in the law for 33 years, but Hilda Sisson and her descendants have been fighting for her Olympic gold medal for much longer.

Sisson was runner-up to Stanislawa Walasiewicz for the 1932 Olympic 100 metres title in Los Angeles. There were no sex tests in those days, and suspicions were confirmed only when Walasiewicz was murdered in 1980. A post mortem discovered both male and female sex organs.

There are numerous examples of women's titles and records having been won and set by people with male genitalia.

Richard Caborn, the sports minister, said: "This is the best move for UK sports governing bodies. It will enable them to act in line with the approach taken by international sports governing bodies."

But for the amendment, the UK rule book would have been illegal. It states that: "Competitors' gender shall be determined by the information on their birth certificate." How they will find out the birth sex, once a new certificate has been issued, remains unclear.

© The Herald, 2004

The Christian Institute